Child prisoners of Bangladesh – in pictures

Bangladeshi children who have been arrested are sometimes held in filthy, cramped cells with convicted adult criminals; many suffer physical and emotional abuse. The UN children’s agency, Unicef, has joined forces with the law firm DLA Piper to bolster the standard of care and treatment of children who come into contact with the law as victims, witnesses and offenders

Fri 1 Aug 2014 06.06 EDT
Last modified on Wed 31 May 2017 06.22 EDT

More than 12,000 people live in Khulna slum, one of Bangladesh’s poorest urban areas. About 30% of local children who are not in school are reportedly labourers. Another 20% are not in school or work, and risk getting involved in crime. The justice system is straining under a lack of resources. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

Badal (not his real name) lives with his mother in a small thatched-roof house in the slum. Two years ago, when he was 12, he was arrested and beaten by police for stealing and selling pigeons. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

‘There were five of us in a small cell: three adults, me and another child who was older than me,’ Badal says. ‘I remember being hit three times with a baton and feeling very bad about what had happened.’ Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

Badal was released after the intervention of a Unicef-supported child protection committee that helps children in trouble with the law to be reintegrated into their communities. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

Masood (not his real name) is 17 and an engineering student. He, too, has experienced what it’s like to be on the wrong side of the law in Khulna. Eighteen months ago he was arrested after he saw a rickshaw being hijacked and its owner stabbed. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

‘They tied my hands and started hitting me on my back with their batons and saying lots of bad things to me. I was beaten severely. Afterwards the police sent me to Khulna jail where adult prisoners are held. I was there for three nights.’ Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

‘It was winter and I was suffering because I didn’t have enough warm clothes. I was surrounded by seasoned criminals and the conditions in the prison were bad,’ Masood says. Here, an armed guard walks through the gate of a juvenile detention centre in Jessore. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

After being detained alongside adult prisoners, Masood was moved to a state-run juvenile detention centre in Jessore. In Bangladesh these facilities are known as Kishore Unnayan Kendras. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

More than 140 boys are detained at the facility in Jessore. It is one of three juvenile detention centres in Bangladesh, which is home to 70 million children. Here, a boy cycles past the entrance of the Jessore centre. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

Child protection committees in Khulna and Jessore comprise local men and women working with families and police to help protect children who come into contact with the law as witnesses, victims or offenders. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

Committees consisting of teachers, parents, community elders and religious leaders work in wards across Khulna and Jessore. They help to tackle reoffending and the social exclusion of vulnerable children and young people. Photograph: Jannatul Mawa/Unicef

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